Three Critical Holes in Patch Tuesday Crosshairs

Next Tuesday's batch of patches from Microsoft won't land as hard as June's, but eSecurityPlanet reports that three critical holes will be dealt with, making quick deployment a necessity.

As the dog days of summer arrive in Seattle, Microsoft is preparing to issue four security bulletins next Tuesday -- three of them rated "critical," Microsoft's highest ranking.

The good news is there are only four patches, and that two of them fix outstanding zero-day vulnerabilities for which users and administrators have been waiting.

Microsoft typically gives IT administrators advance notice the week before each of its monthly Patch Tuesday roundup of bug fixes. However, because it doesn't want to alert nefarious hackers to security vulnerabilities before Patch Tuesday, the company's advance notices usually gives only slim details.